Improvement in the manufacture of sulphurous acid



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

P. MARCELIN AND E. EUDE, OF NEWV ORLEANS, LOUISIANA.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 28,678, dated June 1'2, 1860.

.To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that we, PAULlVIAROELINaDd ERNST EUDE, of New Orleans, in the parish of Orleans and State of Louisiana, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Processes of Making Acid Sulphite or Bisulphite of Lime; and we do hereby declare that the following is a full and exact description thereof.

Our invention consists of a new process for making sulphurous-acid gas.

In the ordinary mode of making sulphurous-acid gas, sulphuris placed in a furnace, and one portion of the sulphur is ignited while a part of the sulphur and the furnace itself are yet cold. Consequently a large quantity of atmospheric air is mixed with a small portion of sulphurousacid gas in the commencement of the operation. Before the furnace becomes heated, so as to begin to draw, this mixture of air and gas is liable to escape from the furnace, greatly to the annoyance (if not dan gerous to the health) of the operator. If pumps be employed to increase the draft of the furnace before the combustion of the sulphur becomes rapid, then the atmospheric air is carried into the apparatus with a slight per cent. of sulphurous acid, and the whole operation is greatly embarrassed. Even after the combustion is well under way, the amount of air drawn through the furnace by the pumps or otherwise greatly dilutes the sulphurousacid gas, and also carries an unnecessary amount of sulphurous fumes (or flowers of sulphur) into the apparatus, which is thus liable to be clogged or choked.

In order to prevent these difficulties and to obtain a rich sulphurous-acid gas, we have invented the process of heating the mass of sulphur by means of steam previous to igniting the same, and continuing the steam heat in order to facilitate the free combustion of the sulphur with but a small admission of air to the furnace, thus obtaining sulphurous-acid gas of much higher per cent. than usual.

In conducting this process, it is necessary to have a close furnace, with a regulator for admitting air slowly as the combustion of the sulphurproceeds. The extra heat of the steam promotes the combustion, and thus constantly exhausts the atmospheric air within the furnace by consuming the oxygen. The chamber of the furnace must be supplied with steampipes, which may be arranged in a series at the bottom of the chamber, so that the sulphur can be laid directly on and around the steam-pip es. It is better that these pip es should pipes at the bottom until the whole mass of sulphur is heated. Then by igniting the sulphur active combustion suddenly commences, the air within the furnace is soon nearly exhausted, and the furnace is filled with rich sulphurous-acid gas. Now, by opening the regulator, so as to admit a small quantity of atmospheric air, the sulphurous-acid gas rises from the furnace through the tube, and is conducted away by a suitable pipe to the washer. The washer and all the other apparatus may be arranged in the ordinary manner for washing bisulphite of lime; or the gas may be conducted from the washer to a gasometer, from which it may be introduced to the cane-juice without being combined with lime. For this purpose the gasometer should be supplied with an injection-tube connected with the gasometer by a flexible tube.

In the above manner we are able to produce sulphurous acid of about twenty per cent., whereas by the processes heretofore in use the sulphurous acid produced has usually been about three or four per cent.

Having thus fully described our invention, what we claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States, is

The above-described process of making sulphurous-acid gas by the use of steam heat, substantially as described, for the purposes set forth.

' P. MAROELIN.

E. EUDE.

Vitnesses:

RoB'r. IV. LUSHER, O. E. BULH, Jr. 

